By EFE
A Texas jury ordered Friday that well-known broadcaster and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones pay $45.2 million as a "punitive penalty" to the parents of one of the victims of the Sandy Hook school shooting, where 20 children and 6 adults died in 2012.
This is the second verdict received by Jones, founder of the InfoWars podcast, since yesterday the same jury ordered the far-rightist to pay 4.1 million dollars in compensation to Scarlett Lewis and Neil Heslin, parents of little Jesse, 6, who died in that shooting.
Punitive sanctions are contemplated in those cases in which someone has engaged in particularly harmful behaviour.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones tries to answer questions from an attorney during his trial in Travis County Court, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022. Briana Sanchez / AP
From his InfoWars podcast, Jones spent years spreading the theory that the shooting at the Sandy Hook school in Newtown, Connecticut,
was a "farce," prompting several of the victims' families to sue him.
After the complaints began to be filed, the commentator changed his speech and went on to acknowledge that the shooting was real.
[What consequences do the Uvalde police officers face for their actions in the shooting?]
Even so, the theory propagated by Jones led several of his followers to threaten and harass the parents of the victims, including those of little Jesse, whom they accused of lying about their son's death for political purposes.
Alex Jones ordered to pay more than $4,000,000 for his lies about the Sandy Hook massacre
Aug. 4, 202200:22
The nearly $50 million Jones will have to pay the plaintiffs is well below the $150 million originally sought.
Last Friday, Jones's company, Free Speech Systems, declared bankruptcy, in a move that the victims interpreted precisely as part of a strategy to reduce the amount of the then foreseeable penalty.